


Lunch break observations

by SrebrnaFH



Series: Srebrna's Sherlock Oneshots [5]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: John is Smarter than he looks, Post-Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-08
Updated: 2018-09-08
Packaged: 2019-07-08 13:23:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15931319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SrebrnaFH/pseuds/SrebrnaFH
Summary: John sits in a restaurant and watches Mycroft.





	Lunch break observations

**Author's Note:**

> I was watching a friend talking to someone and guessed her caller simply by the way she reacted. I thought a trained analyst would be able to do something similar ;)

Sometimes when you know the patterns of how people talk to each other, you can guess who is on the other side of a call even if nobody tells you. You look at the person next to you and see the way they frown, they way they unconsciously nod, the tick in the corner of their eye, the cadence of their voice, the way they get interrupted, the little uplift of a half-smile and the way they look up at you and make that “what can I do” face that tells you all about their interlocutor’s state of mind and their opinion about that.

John didn’t really  _like_  having lunch with Mycroft, but at least the man was the one person in the general neighbourhood of London who didn’t try showering him with platitudes. So here he was, sitting in the cosy little restaurant that served crepes and waited for Mycroft to finish a call.

It had been a year now. A full year since Sherlock had…

He inhaled deeply and shot Mycroft a look over the menu.

And caught something in the older man’s face.

Something specific.

He didn’t think there was another person alive on that planet that could make Mycroft Holmes scowl in that fashion. And once you remove the impossible, what is left becomes the only solution.

Here he was, looking at his something of a boss (ever since he had been hired as a low-level analyst in a minor governmental office) and something of a friend (because one’s friends are not always what one would expect) and something of a family (because once you turn out to have a compatible blood group…) and waiting for him to finish talking to what seemed, by all means, to be a dead man.

John folded the menu back and put it on the table, leaned back and kept observing Mycroft, whose steps were now turning nervous (and yes, there were other people who could annoy Mycroft Holmes so, but not that many) and who was hitting the pavement with his umbrella hard enough to damage the steel-capped tip.

John smiled and sighed.

He wasn’t sure when. He wasn’t sure why or how. He was only sure that.

Sherlock Holmes was alive and apparently well enough to get his brother furious with him.

A waitress appeared and asked him for the order.

“Yes, well” he pursed his lips and looked up at Mycroft, who was now on a verge of tearing his hair out. “I think my friend there will be in a need of a little consolation. What do you have that contains strawberries or bilberries, and chocolate?”

He smiled at her as she rattled off a few options, finally choosing the one that sounded the most improbably scrumptious.

“And a second pot of Earl Grey, please. And a galette complète for me, thank you.”

He knew Mycroft’s weak points. Mycroft knew his doctor knew his weak points. The minute the overblown concoction of fruit, chocolate and clotted cream would appear on their table, Mycroft would know John knew something.

Obviously, he wouldn’t say  _what_  he knew and Mycroft would not ask. It would be below the honour of a Holmes, wouldn’t it?

John sipped his tea and watched his best friend’s brother tell his little brother off for whatever it was that a supposedly dead person can get up to. He sat back, warmth of the tea filling him and warmth of something resembling happiness relaxing his shoulders.

He couldn’t wait for Mycroft to finally come in and see his lunch.

He would take great satisfaction in watching the British Government squirm a little. For a few days.


End file.
